Elite change and political polarization in Turkish political life: AK Party era

The existence of political polarization in society has been keeping Turkey quite busy in recent years. Although this debate has intensified today, it is actually almost as old as Turkish modernization. The modernization and social change that started with the Tanzimat changed the structure of the power elite to a great extent, and this change cyclically changed the mood of the society and transformed the central values of politics and institutions in the opposite direction of the conventional values. With the transformation process that started with the Tanzimat, two fronts consisting of those who are satisfied with the situation and those who are not, Turkish political life has witnessed the conflict between these two fronts for many years. The aim of the thesis is to reveal the causes of the polarization arising from this conflict with scientific meticulousness, in line with the content analysis method, based on the quantitative and qualitative method, the data obtained as a result of the literature review. For this purpose, a detailed analysis has been made to cover the ruling period of the AK Party, which is undoubtedly one of the most influential political actors of the last period. In addition, the polarization and elite changes experienced until the AK Party period were studied in a way to cover the basis of the aforementioned polarization and elite change. According to the results of the examinations, it has been seen that the cause of polarization is not the Ak Party, as the secular front claims, but the established elites and social institutions related to those elites. According to the conclusion, the established elites and the institutions that are related to them contribute to polarization by directing the society towards the extremes because they are not satisfied with the loss of their privileged positions against the rising new elite. On the other hand, Ak Party uses the environment created by this polarization to some extent for its own interests. It is seen that Erdogan, in particular, manipulates the polarization environment that sometimes arises for the reasons we have mentioned above, in line with his political interests, and contributes to polarization by following populist statements with the fear of votes.